Review of The Experiment (2010) by Telma V — 23 Nov 2010

Three things wrong with this movie: 1) Forest Whitaker's characterization is a little too crazy for my taste, at least early in the film. Towards the end I could believe his performance, but it seemed false in the beginning. 2) The ending is ridiculous. I don't want to spoil it, but as the final climax hits and dissipates, my reaction was simply, "WHAT? Are you kidding me?" and 3) Most important of all, the movie just tries way too hard. Look, it's based loosely on the Stanford Prison Experiment, and the number 1 rule is "No violence" so OF COURSE we know that it's going to come to violence. No question. But the setup of the movie is so dark and ominous as they all interview and arrive at the prison, you'd think Freddy Kruger himself was waiting there for them. Instead of playing sparse, scary music and setting up the doctor as so stern and forceful, the film would've been much better if it was seen through the prospective of Adrian Brody's character (who does a great job in this role, by the way). If you start us in a more cheerful, optimistic mood, it'll make taking the path down into the darkness of the violence more fun. Like I said, we already know the shit's going to hit the fan. So don't force feed it to us first.

The themes and story of the film are really pretty interesting, though, and that saves this from being a total waste of time. The performances by Ethan Cohn, Clifton Collins Jr, and especially Adrien Brody are fairly top-notch. Brody truly stands out, I can't say that enough. Had this been a better made film, he might've received some nods for this one. Also, I don't know the actor or character name (go figure) but the guy with the nose ring and eye-liner was interesting. I felt that his acting choices were really out of the box, especially when they first arrive, and I appreciated that. It worked for me better than Whitaker's odd choices.